In a court order signed by a district court judge Thursday, Stephen McDaniel, who is charged with the murder of Mercer Law classmate Lauren Giddings, states that he does not object to the Giddings' family searching his grandfather's property for her remains.

Giddings' torso was found in a garbage bin outside her Macon apartment in June 2011. Investigators have not located the rest of her remains.

Giddings' parents, Bill and Karen Giddings, filed a wrongful death suit against McDaniel in June asking for permission to search the 63-acre farm in Pike County.

Thursday's order, signed by Judge C. Ashley Royal, gives the family until June 30, 2014 to do that.

McDaniel's statement says the search must be done "by privately retained experts who have no affiliation with the defendant's current criminal case pending in the Superior Court of Bibb County."

The lawyer for the Giddings family, Kristin Miller, says they will serve a subpoena to the current property owner and hope to find a forensic expert and cadaver dogs within the next few months.

The order also names 26 witnesses identified by McDaniel and his lawyers.

13WMAZ could not reach McDaniel's lawyer Floyd Buford or members of the Giddings family for comment.

This civil suit is separate from the murder trial scheduled to start in January.